I received Ash Princess, by Laura Sebastian, from my local library as a book club book.
When I first read the synopsis and saw the cover, I had high hopes. To my dismay, the book did not live up to its cover.
The premise of Ash Princess sounded good. It promised a twisted, dark narrative of a young princess in captivity fighting back against her captors for the sake of her enslaved people.
Theodosia, Theo, and Thora are all synonymous for the main character, the Ash Princess. I will be mostly referring to her as Theo throughout this review.
Without spoilers, I felt that the characters fell flat, specifically the main protagonist. I expected a strong lead who I could sympathize with and root for, who I could understand and have empathy for when she failed. However, all I felt was malcontent and irritation with her. When I ask for a strong lead, I don’t mean that the character herself needs to be strong-willed or independent or physically capable, I just want a character who can carry their own story and Theo just wasn’t it.
The plot was interesting and the premise, as I stated before was intriguing. I think it fell through with the execution. Where things could have taken interesting turns, it was predictable. Where the author could have taken a different path than usual, it was filled with cliches.
While there were many characters that I could definitely have lived without, there were three that stood out to me; Soren, Elpis, and the Kaiserin. They were interesting and had a lot of potential.
I really did enjoy the worldbuilding. The book had great bones, but lacked in some of the other places.
The cover was probably my favorite part. It is absolutely gorgeous and stunning and fits the premise of the book beautifully. I just wish the rest of the book lived up to the cover.
If you have already read “Ash Princess”, keep reading to find out more in-depth what I think about each character, the twists, the turns, and all the other craziness that happens in the full lengthed, spoiler filled review below.
Spoilers ahead! Beware!
The first red flag I had for this novel was the premature revelation of Theodosia’s true father. Ampelio was a Guardian (people who had powers based on Spiritgems that were mined in Theo’s country) who served Theo’s late mother and Fire Queen faithfully. Not a page or so after we meet him, before we even know his name, the author, speaking through Theodosia, concludes that he is her father. Had we had more time to question who Theodosia’s father was or to care more deeply about Ampelio or Theodosia herself, the moment when she learns that he is her father, when he calls her by her full name (which is the first time she has heard her name in ten years), and when she inevitably has to kill him would have been far more impactful.
Though this was the first sign that this book would not go well, I still had hope.
Ignoring the fact that the writing felt incredibly slow for 90% of the book and the other 10% was crammed together and rushed, and ignoring the fact that most of the book was Theo’s inner thoughts, I was excited to read that her final plan was to kill Prinz Soren. When she later decided to kill Cress (her friend) and Theyn (her friend’s father and the one who killed Theo’s mother) as well, I was even more excited. Except, none of that ever happened.
The ending was extremely disappointing. Not only did Theo not kill Cress or Theyn, but she hired a 14-year-old girl to do her dirty work. This girl, who was one of the few characters I actually liked, was caught and was killed by the Kaiser (the King). I had decided that I did not like the book long before this happened, but I hated it afterward. Yet, I held the slightest amount of hope that Theo would still kill Prince Soren, who she had fallen in love with over the course of the book.
But she didn’t. She almost did. He even begged her to. But she didn’t. Instead, she kidnaps him and brings her along with him when she finally escapes the palace with her friends. Her plan wasn’t a bad one; kill Soren, blame it on the Kaiser, cause a rift, use that rift to take back control of her country. Yet, she sacrificed her entire country, thousands of enslaved people, because she had a crush.
Maybe I’m being a little harsh. I could maybe understand if she was supposed to kill Blaise, a boy she’s known for years, her friend. The plans that Theo and her comrades, Blaise, Artemisia, and Heron, created might have worked, but it relied heavily on Theo having the gaul to kill Cress, Theyn, and Soren. She reassured them time and time again that she could do what they had planned on. But she didn’t. People died because she couldn’t stab someone she cared about.
Oh wait.
Didn’t she stab someone at the beginning of the book, someone she cared about deeply, someone she thought was her father?
So, Theo was willing to kill her own father to save her life, but she won’t kill one of the guys she had a crush on to save her entire people?
Maybe it’s just me, but that doesn’t really add up.
If you couldn’t tell, I didn’t enjoy Theo’s character in the slightest. However, I didn’t like many other characters either. I think I counted four that I enjoyed. I liked Elpis (the kid that Theo got killed), the Kaiserin (the Queen), the guy on the boat who was flirting with Theo, and Soren.
Elpis was completely innocent throughout most of the book. She was young and impressionable, only wanting to do what was best for her country. Unluckily for her, she got strung into Theo’s ring. I was really proud of her for being willing to kill Cress and Theyn, even though she shouldn’t have to, seeing as it was Theo’s idea to begin with. I can’t tell you how angry I was when Elpis died and not at those who killed her, but at Theo and, even more so, the author. To me, this felt like poor writing, just killing a character for shock value.
I enjoyed the Kaiserin. She felt like a good, neutral character. Of course, she died too. I loved the way she cared for her son. It was clear to me what her intentions were from the beginning. Anything that kept her son safe, she would do. She was one of the few characters that were consistent throughout the entire book. I was very upset when she died, but her death actually made sense to the plot.
The only reason I put the boy on the boat on my list of characters I liked was that he wasn’t in the book much. I imagine that if he was a recurring character, I would probably hate him, but for the few scenes he had, he was decent.
Finally, we come to Soren. He was a “complicated character”, though slightly bland. He was willing to do things for his father that he shouldn’t have done, like using a bunch of innocent slaves as human weapons. But he doesn’t like it. Out in the world, he seems like a fearless leader, but when he meets a soft girl, he reveals how much he hates killing people. This kind of character “flaw” is very common and though I usually have a soft spot for them, they get boring after a while. However, given the line up of other characters I have to hate, Soren isn’t the worst.
Looking at the other characters in this book, the number of poorly written characters outweigh the good ones.
To get one character out of the way, I don’t hate Heron. I just don’t remember enough about him to care about him at all.
Now to the others.
I did not like Theo in the slightest. She was selfish and didn’t really seem to care about anyone but herself. Pointing to the example I already made, Theo wasn’t willing to kill one person for the sake of thousands of her people, but she killed someone to save her own life. Maybe there was some kind of moral transformation throughout the book that I missed, but to me, it all felt selfish. She, like many of the other characters in the book, had no consistency. Flipping through the book, the most constant plot point was Theo flip-flopping back and forth between her real name (Theodosia) and the name the Kaiser gave her (Thora). Who was she more? It’s a legitimate question, especially as a victim of years of abuse, but there were so many times when she was passionate in her belief that she was Theodosia, a Queen, but three pages later her resolve vanished. It gave me reader whiplash. I could never decide when she was going to be Thora or Theodosia and it just wasn’t enjoyable. So much of the book was her inner thoughts, which isn’t bad in of itself, but Theo’s inner thoughts are repetitive, boring, and not compelling at all.
Moving on from Theodosia, Cress was not a likable character either. Or, I should say, one of her personalities was not likeable. I am pretty sure that Cress has an identical twin sister who went but the same name but was the exact opposite of her. Maybe I have never met someone who had two completely separate personalities, but Cress was just strange. On one page, Cress was a sweet girl who wanted nothing more than to help Theo. This was obviously her fake side, but the author wanted us to believe that this kind version of Cress was truly innocent. However, whenever it came to Theo getting in the way of her and Soren or becoming the Kaiserin, which was Cress’ dream, she became some sort of demon who would do whatever it takes to get whatever she wants. This is a character trait I can respect. Sabotaging the girl she claims to be her best friend so she can get at the prince? Makes sense. (Especially since I find it incredibly difficult to believe that Cress cared at all for Theo, seeing as she was kind of complicit in the abuse and trauma of Theo). Her last scene where she survived fire poison that no one should be able to survive where she threatens Theo, I felt like I finally liked her because the real Cress was finally in the light. Throughout the book, I did not like her. I did not know which Cress we were going to get in which scene, making liking her character incredibly difficult.
Artemisia and Blaise are two of Theo’s people. They have been slaves for years and they finally find a way to break into the castle to rescue Theo and hopefully save the lives of their people. Blaise gave me bad vibes from the start. I don’t remember when or why, but I really didn’t like when he kissed her. I knew from the moment that Theo said they were friends when they were kids that he would be the third person in the love triangle, with Theo in the middle. He was supposed to be the Bad Boy, the Good Soldier, the One Who Gets Things Done No Matter The Cost. But it just wasn’t done well. He was impossible to relate to. It was obvious he cared in some strange way for Theo, but he didn’t really have much of a character. I didn’t care at all when he was dying at the end of he book because I couldn’t care about him at all.
Artemisia was almost as bad. She was the Tough Girl, the “I Don’t Care About Anyone”, Closed Off. The problem with writing Closed Off characters, especially when they aren’t the main characters, is that they are difficult to relate to. We don’t know anything about this character and that makes it difficult to like them. Artemisia wasn’t written well enough to care about at all. Discovering that the one obscure character that was mentioned a few times was her mother (revealing that this obscure character is a woman when she was often referred to as a man) didn’t do anything for me or for the character.
Speaking of this obscure character, her name was Dragonsbane. She’s a pirate. She’s Artemisia’s mother. She was supposed to play a large roll in the end plan, but because Theo messed everything up with not killing Soren and getting Elpis murdered, Dragonsbane played an even larger role. She also happens to be Theo’s aunt. This was supposed to be the plot twist at the end of the book. Maybe this is important because that means that Dragonsbane and Artemisia both have claims to the throne, but since their throne no longer exists, I can’t think of a reason that this is important. Another possibility is that it gives Theo a family, but the author established at the beginning of the book that Theo is willing to kill her family for her own life, so it’s hard to imagine that Dragonsbane being her aunt does anything for the plot of the next book.
Before I get to my last point about the writing, here are a few things I enjoyed.
The cover. Well, the sleeve. It’s absolutely gorgeous. With the ash-colored background, the silver crown burning to dark ashes dropping over the gold title is just gorgeous. The red of the fire creeping up the crown represents the rebellion, both the one brewing within Kalovaxia and the one within Theo herself. I love the cover. I really wish the book lived up to it.
The world-building was decent. The Spiritgems and their corresponding powers made sense and were unique to most other books. I thought the concept of the Berserker was pretty interesting as well. Letting the Astrean’s go mad with power and send them to their doom? It’s a good way to get rid of rebellious people and kill your enemy. Morally, not so great, but strategically, it’s sound. Other than that, the world in Ash Princess isn’t super in-depth, but that’s okay. We don’t need to know the history of every tree to enjoy the story.
I thought the plot was really interesting at first. As I said in the beginning, I was really interested in the idea. To me, it felt like a dark twist on a fairy tale, sort of like how “The Shadow Queen” by C.J. Redwine was a twist on the Snow White story. I guess that this means the synopsis was good.
Now, my final difficulty with this book is the writing itself. It felt amateurish and simple. It wasn’t bad writing, there just wasn’t anything intriguing about it. The writing reminds me of Holly Black’s “Tithe”, where there wasn’t anything flowing and beautiful about the words or how the sentences were structured. However, since I read “The Cruel Prince” before I read “Tithe” I was a lot more lenient because I knew how much her writing had improved. I think the same can be true for Laura Sebastian; if she keeps writing, keeps working on her craft, she will get a lot better. I just wished she had saved this piece for a later time. Had she written “Ash Princess” a few years down the road of her writing career, I think it would have turned out a lot better.
***
Reminder: These are my opinions. These are not facts. You can have different opinions from me and that’s totally alright. If you loved this book, tell me why! I would love to know how you feel. Have a blessed day!
Caroline Noelle
Psalm 46.10
